A Paramedic’s Career: keen senses, goodwill, and patience with patients

Paramedics impact our lives everyday. These on call heroes are able to work under pressure and are knowledgeable when it comes to emergency response. Without these brave and quick thinkers in our midst, many lives would be lost that could have been saved if someone wasn’t there to help.

Enter Randy Greening, a paramedic and hero on call for the North Metro Fire Rescue in Adams County. Greening has been a paramedic for eight years. He became a certified paramedic December 2001.

Explaining what made him want to become a paramedic, Greening says that he was not happy with his job at the time. He dreaded going to work every day and missing out on things at home.

One day Greening was talking to his sister, a nurse at St. Anthony’s North, and she was telling him that she loved her job and that he should look at coming into the medical field because of job security, and the gratitude of watching patients return to their normal lives.

Greening says the hardest part of his career was when he went to an accident on the highway once, the SUV had flipped onto its side and the mother was all right.

“I went to check on her six month old baby — it had died in the accident. I had to tell her that her child had died. I felt so bad; words can’t even describe how badly it hurt to tell her that. I couldn’t imagine losing one of my children in a car accident. Not only that, but working on children is really hard too. Especially when they look like my kids did when they were younger. Even working on kids that are the same age as mine is difficult. I can’t even think what a parent would be going through at that point in time.”

The most memorable situation that Greening has had been part of was when he went to a house at night; the carbon monoxide alarm had gone off.

“It was one of those that were hooked up to the house security system. It was a mother, a father and their fifteen year old child that were found in the house, they were unconscious from carbon monoxide poisoning. The air was filled with more than 12,000 parts per million of carbon monoxide. Everyone was all right after a quick stay in the hospital. Once they went home, they invited me and my team members to their home to thank us for saving their lives.”

Greening said that they still receive a Christmas card every year from the family, so now they are like extended family that they keep in constant contact with.

“I love the adrenaline rush that I get when we get a call,” he says. ”I also like that the team is like a giant family, and that I can have a flexible schedule so that I can spend time with my family. It’s not just one thing that makes the job worthwhile; it’s the experience as a whole.”

One patient Greening helped was seriously injured and refused treatment, even though he knew that they would probably die if they did not receive treatment. Greening said the man was having a heart attack and he was swinging, yelling and swearing at the First Responders, he was in denial of having a heart attack, and he did not want any help from anyone.

Then the man eventually went unconscious, and they were able to take him to the hospital. They had lost a lot of time while they were arguing with him. Once he recovered from the heart attack, he had a mental-health hold placed on him so that he could be evaluated further.

Greening added that with a mental-health hold, a person can be held for up to 72 hours at first, and then the courts can decide whether they can be released, or if they need to stay in the hospital for up to 90 days. Greening understands the reasoning behind the mental-health hold, but sometimes he doesn’t agree with it, because the courts can ho ld someone on the Psych Ward for extended periods of time.

The courts can hold someone because that person has no where to go, or that the courts decide that their home is not suitable for them any longer. The patients are pretty much trapped on the Psych Ward with nowhere to go, and they have a lot of the things that we take for granted, like shoelaces, taken away from them because of their potential for killing or harming a person.

Greening says that there are a lot of protocols that a paramedic must follow to keep his license; he cannot administer medication without the approval of the doctor. Greening also said paramedics work under the direction of a doctor, if they were to be sued for negligence, the doctor would be sued as well. Greening recalled that he has broken the protocol a few times to save a patients’ life, all he had to do was explain to the doctor what had happened, why he made the decision that he did, and then the doctor will submit the paperwork. This paperwork is also included in the patient’s medical records.

Without paramedics, there would be many more fatalities with car accidents, strokes and heart attacks. The profession is not as glamorous as it is often portrayed on television. He doesn’t always make it in time, he’s had to take deceased people out of cars and pick up the pieces that are left behind.

Yet in spite of all of the depressing things that he has come across, Greening has had some wonderful experiences as a paramedic. He has saved lives and gained family members through the comradery of the profession that he is involved in. Being a paramedic is a tough career, not just physically but mentally, and you need a great support system to help you get through the tough time. Greening seems to have everything that he needs or wants, he has a loving family that he can come home to every night and he has a career that he loves.

Top 10 things you need to know about a person’s health that may help
paramedics in an emergency.
1. Names of their doctors.
2. Birth dates.
3. List of allergies.
4. Advance directives.
5. Major medical problems.
6. List of medications and supplements.
7. Religious beliefs.
8. Insurance information.
9. Prior surgeries and major medical procedures.
10. Lifestyle information. (alcohol or tobacco use)